Aliens in the Attic

The most surprising aspect of John Schultz’s mediocre sci-fi comedy Aliens in the Attic is that the eventual arrival of the titular bumbling extra-terrestrials actually ruins a fairly amusing family movie. Ashley Tisdale, Carter Jenkins and Austin Robert Butler play the three oldest children of the extended Pearson clan, a sitcom-grade dysfunctional family vacationing together in Michigan. They are initially at each other’s throats, but when an advance team of jive-talking aliens crash lands on the roof of their rental home, the Pearson kids have to work together to prevent a full-scale invasion of Earth. The aliens are just too annoying for Aliens in the Attic to work, although the scenes in which they’re absent attest to its trashed potential. This film is rated PG for pervasive-testicle contusion humor.